Fallout continues over secret McConnell recording

FBI investigation underway

The FBI has been asked to look into whether Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's campaign headquarters was bugged after a recording of a private campaign meeting surfaced in a liberal-leaning magazine.

There's more fallout from a secret recording of Sen. Mitch McConnell, and now the FBI is investigating.Video: McConnell's Tuesday afternoon statementThe recording happened during a campaign strategy session and the topic of discussion was Ashley Judd.The senate minority leader has come under fire for what's on the recording, but the head of the Louisville Tea Party said there's a bigger issue here."I do believe politics have gotten very ugly," said Sarah Durand with the Louisville Tea Party.Case in point, Durand said, is the bugging of McConnell.On the same day McConnell launched his re-election campaign in February, the senate minority leader said someone bugged his campaign strategy meeting.The recording was obtained and made public by Mother Jones magazine."Whether you like Mitch McConnell or not, if you think those kind of tactics are OK to commit a crime to bug an office, what's to stop them from bugging a candidate you do like?" said Durand.One campaign strategist brought up Judd's mental health."She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s," someone is heard saying in the recording.Asked more than once, whether mental health was fair game, McConnell skirted the question."As I indicated, last week they were attacking my wife's ethnicity and also apparently bugging my headquarters much like Nixon and Watergate," said McConnell."They were only discussing Ashley Judd's biography and listened to things she put out there in the public domain already," said Durand.While Durand doesn't think the recording will impact the senate race, the tea party is expected to field a candidate."We plan to support the best person in the race and right now Mitch McConnell is the only person in the race," said Durand.The fifth-term Republican senator originally blamed the anti-McConnell group Progress Kentucky for the bugging.But McConnell aides later backed off that accusation.WLKY News has been unable to get in touch with Progress Kentucky for a comment.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —

There's more fallout from a secret recording of Sen. Mitch McConnell, and now the FBI is investigating.